The Mountain West
Subtitle: Interpreting the Folk Landscape (Creating the North American Landscape)
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: November 4, 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 192
ISBN-13: 9780801854316
Subjects: Cultural studies; Historical geography; Residential buildings, domestic buildings; Rural communities; TRAVEL & HOLIDAY; Vernacular Architecture; Material culture; North America - History; Sociology; United States - West - General; Politics/International Relations; Canada; USA; Earth Sciences - Geography; Human Geography; Rockies; Science / Geography; Design and construction; Social Science; West (U.S.); Log buildings
Description: Why does the West - both in the United States and Canada - differ from the East? Scholars have put forward two fundamentally different and contradictory explanations: the West as the displaced, archaic, frontier East; and the West as a subculture developed indigenously in response to the demands of a dry, rugged physical environment.

In this groundbreaking volume, Terry Jordan and his co-authors look to the log folk buildings of the Mountain West, from New Mexico to Alaska, to explain what makes the West "the West." Arguing that artifacts such as dwellings, barns, and fences can, if correctly interpreted, reveal much about the origins and character of the regional culture, they set forth not only the first comprehensive description and analysis of Western folk architecture but also a systematic explanation of the culture of the West.